Teadonism

Lest anyone needed another reminder of how new I am at this serious tea business, or how generally clueless I am in a spacial sense…a series of (hopefully amusing) tableaux:

My order (see below) arrived from Jing Tea Shop and I tore into it enthusiastically.  I decided I wanted to try the shu puer I ordered first (see the “Reviews” category for tasting notes) and opened it accordingly, arraying the necessary brewing accessories on my…umm…broiler pan.

Then, I paused, studying the unwrapped, whole tuo cha carefully.

After the pause grew, Pete, who was watching me, said, “What?”

“Umm,” I replied cautiously. “I don’t really know what to do next.  Supposedly I can sort of break chunks off of this, but it’s…ummm…compressed way tighter than I though it would be.”

I tried attacking it sort of sideways-like with a butter knife, but only succeeded in scraping a powdery, crushed-leaf mess off the very surface.  That definitely wasn’t right.  Then I remembered someone suggesting using a hammer to make an initial dent in it, then break it up more easily. I definitely was going to skip the “steaming” method, yikes.

The tuo cha goes into a plastic bag and my cruddy picture-nail hammer comes out:

I tap it gingerly on the sides…nothing.  Harder on the sides…still nothing.  Feeling slightly foolish (Pete is clearly snapping pictures of my ineptitude at this point), I decide to give it a good whack right on the top of the bowl:

At this point, although it’s hard to tell in the picture above, I put a gaping, perfectly round hole *right* through the bag *and* the tuo cha, reducing all of the puerh in the path of the hammer to fragmented tea-dust with my Cosmic Hammer Wielding Power of Mightyness:

CURSES!

Anyway…I took it back to the table and took the knife to it again.  This time, I had the gaping crater to work from, and it chunked rather easily:

I brewed the tea.  It was wonderful.  I felt genuinely guilty for smashing it so idiotically.

However, the hole did help me to understand the make-up of the tuo cha *much* better.  I smacked myself on the forehead, seeing how easy it would be to get chunks off after making one forceful, small push below the surface of the compressed tea.  Once you’re “in,” it is very easy…the trick is just to get in *gently*, rather than doing one’s best Thor impression.

Whoops.

 All further tuo cha endeavours have been far more successful and have only needed the butter knife.

Oh, well.  I’m learning.

*Tongue-firmly-in-cheek reference to the excellent pu-erh.net, only self-derision intended. Go visit now!